Rendition
by Malhearst
Summary: When Salazar approaches her about founding a school, Rowena Ravenclaw believes that their time has come. Helga is thrilled to create something as nurturing as a school, but what exactly is Slytherin's interest in the Welsh woman, how will Godric react when he finds out and why does Rowena carry a locket with the letter 'S? Something wicked this way comes, but from which direction?


"Salazar!"

Her footsteps echoed louder than her voice, steady and controlled as it rose to greet him before her eyes could. The dark-skinned man turned, a smile sketched in amusement rather than mirth slitting across his features. He knew very well she hated it when he touched her scrolls, fragile as they were, but it didn't keep him from openly admitting to going against her wishes anyway. It was only leisurely that he cared to roll it back up as she approached him, adding the cerulean ribbon delicately. Rowena's eyes fell on his long, slender fingers, noticing that one of his rings were missing, before travelling back to meet his gaze evenly. A window rattled in the wind, introducing the late afternoon chill of early autumn to his unexpected visit, and with measured movements, she took a detour to close it.

Propriety, however, did not allow for a turned back, and she threw a quick look over her shoulder, her hands reaching for the clasp.

"It is a surprise to see you here," she said. It wasn't humble enough to suggest a fresh acquaintance, not amicable enough to label it an old one. Dark eyes found his cold ones, and she finished by asking, "What are you doing in my library?"

Salazar Slytherin made slow responses, as if the world could wait for him and he couldn't wait for the world. Forever with a well-thought out reply, Rowena stood her ground, her hands now laced together in the folds of her skirt. Waiting, patiently, always proved the best way to address him, and though she had incorporated wariness to her responses, she'd also learnt to set her mind at ease; she was quicker and more creative than he, but most importantly, he didn't suspect it.

"I imagined this would be the first place for you to look," he finally drawled.

"And my scrolls?"

Rowena cocked an eyebrow.

"Very interesting," he intentionally misunderstood the question, "I've personally always found werewolves to provide a splendid reason for training my hunting skills, but I see that you find other uses for them."

Almost grimacing, Rowena took a few slow steps to the side. She could hear Helga's cluck in her ears, knowing that the red-haired girl would have never taken Salazar seriously. Instead, Rowena could well imagine the petite, plump creature from Wales wave him off affably, gesturing regally, as she made a small note on his expression 'other uses'. Helga knew more than she was aware, perhaps, but never more than she could hold. Not even Salazar, Rowena was certain, could pry secrets from that adoring heart, if it could create distrust between her and anyone she cared for.

She had never owned Helga's good temper, nor her easy ways, and finally she reached a station from where to face the dark-haired man with proper calm. The globe spun beneath her fingers, stopped as she bid it and pivoted around another axis. So much was left unplotted and, waving a single finger, she made her mark on a single, small spot in the Highlands.

"You won't find many werewolves in Scotland."

"Ah, so you have talked to Gryffindor."

Two astute orbs circled quickly upwards to find his ignited ones, scrutinising his moves carefully. People standing still, however, had never given much away, and he remained a statue as the waning sun cast its last, dying rays through the glass mosaic before being swallowed completely by the loch, stretching out across the horizon.

"Not exactly," she answered evading, trying to hide the smile as she aspired to imagine the surprise on his face. Having quenched it cruelly, she looked back up to find him with a quirked eyebrow and a silent question in his eyes.

"We've been researching the Verbi Effingo spell. He brought your letter to me as a way to test my latest breakthrough. I'm not quite sure he had an agenda."

"Oh?" asked her conversation partner immediately. The single syllable dropped from his lips in perfect timing, the last of the light transforming into a few floating light bulbs around the room. With an almost hurried gesture, Rowena dismissed them to their rightful places, and one by one, the candles around the library were lit to constitute a cosy yet practical lighting. Her eyes did nothing to avoid his, and she continued the exchange of queries without the bat of an eyelash.

"I deduce that's your mission here, then?"

Salazar knew better than to deny it, and the question was left hanging in the air the way it was spoken: rhetorical and unanswered.

"Well," Rowena began again, drawing two seats towards them from separate corners of the room when he suddenly interrupted her.

"Let me," he purred, conjuring instead two luxuriously adorned mahogany chairs, fabulously detailed fairy tales carved down the backs and displaying him to his advantage. Smiling despite himself, he looked up, and Rowena sent him a very pointed look.

After a certain amount of time had passed, feeling suddenly that he had outlived the punishment, she said, "They could use a hint of gold and emerald." Then she transformed the arms and feet, knowing that the emerald would be seen as a cadeau to him, but laughter bubbled in her chest, and they soon sat down in quite a different mood.

"I have talked it over briefly with Helga," she began, but he cut in as if her words was nothing more than soft butter.

"Ah yes, how is the little Welsh darling?"

"You have not met her yet?"

"No," he responded, obviously entertained, "but you speak of her so often, I imagine she must be quite something."

Rowena bristled invisibly.

"As far as I understand, you even let Gryffindor meet with her?"

"Are you proposing I'm keeping her from you?" The question hung etched into the brief silence that ensued before she obtained a reply from him.

"Yes."

"Well, you're wrong."

"Am I?" He was pushing it, the easy manner of biting into her, the insolent way he questioned either her sincerity or her insight.

"In that case," he shrugged, nonchalant, "when am I going to meet her?"

"You seem to suppose it is a given that you will," Rowena smiled, adjusting the locket around her neck. The silver caught the light and sent it back into the room, sliding around the curves of the 'S'.

His gaze quickly locked on it and, sensing a weakness, the grey eyes preyed on the beautiful ornament like a predator spotting a deer in the woods. Inclining his head, his voice like spun gold, he asked her softly, "S? That seems a rather erroneous letter for someone with the names Rowena and Ravenclaw."

A quick stare, and she looked away.

"I'll recommend you on your powers of observation, Salazar. Let's leave it at that."

"Indeed," he consented smoothly, only the smallest trace of a smile curling at the corner of his lips.

"And," she continued, eager to change the subject under his prying eyes, "you will meet her when there is an occasion. I won't bind myself to such a promise."

"No, I'm sure you won't, dear, but I might."

Eyebrows furrowing, the response was immediate.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh nothing." It was a disinterested tone, signifying anything but. "Simply that I might have something in exchange for the favour."

Wariness crept back into her countenance, and the warmth of the candles seemed a little less like comfort and a little more like an exhibition of every crack in her voice. Folding her hands in her lap, she gave him a piercing look.

"Why are you so obsessed with meeting Helga?"

"Why are you so keen on keeping me from her?"

"I will answer yours when you answer me mine."

"Will you?"

The question was too poignant to ignore, and Rowena struggled to maintain eye contact.

"I will give you an answer to the best of my conviction."

"I'm sure you will," Salazar replied, mirroring the way she braided her hands before steepling them in front of his mouth, "but I'm afraid that's not good enough."

Again, he implied more than she would like him to, and for the seventh time that evening, she wished for nothing than to be left alone with the scrolls and books, the candles and pale moonlight pooling on the floor. Filtered through the window, it lay shattered and broken, an incomplete picture of something that had brightly resembled an actual picture in the daytime.

Uncomfortable and annoyed, Rowena made an attempt to change the subject.

"So, you plan to make it the greatest wizarding school in England?"

"It's funny, you seem so completely uninterested in what I had to offer in return." The darkness of his demeanour ensconced her, trapping her like a fly in a Venomous Fuga Plant. It was not quite forgotten, the gift he'd offered for the simple gesture of introducing a friend, but his interest was beginning to scare her, and Rowena wasn't so certain she was not going to be the one paying the price in the end.

"I'm not uninterested, Salazar." She articulated the words slowly, clearly, sending him a message between the lines, "I'm just not sure I'll be so very happy to pay for it."

"Pay?" he laughed, and she scowled in return, "I'm simply asking for what you value so highly yourself, Rowena: knowledge. I want to know this golden woman who has spun you so completely around her finger."

"You didn't seem keen on being introduced before she met Godric," she said coolly, a dawning feeling of a revelation pushing on.

"Perhaps," he shrugged, and even those two short syllables of not committing sounded chivalrous when spoken with his twisted tongue, "but what does it matter?"

"You're hiding something, Salazar."

"So are you."

"Alright," she finally sighed after a couple of moments, "What is it?"

"It's a proposition; a way for us both to get what we want. You say so often that there is so much more to learn. What better way to keep yourself at it than teaching it to others?"

She already knew where this was going, but she didn't interject in the artificial pause, and clearly he took it for a green light.

"We're talking the best wizarding school in England." Languidly, he pushed himself off from his chair to circle around the chair in front of her, hands behind his back. Once or twice, he would stop and set off one of her instruments, and Rowena only thanked herself for not displaying the experiments in the library. "This would be state of the art – an opportunity for you to gather money for new research, a name for us all to claim when we needed access somewhere, a legacy. We'd rise to greatness, all of us."

"All of us?"

Licking his lips, Salazar smiled.

"Well, what more natural way to begin an acquaintance than by working together? I've heard quite enough, and it seems this Helga Hufflepuff is indispensable to your happiness. Why not bring her along and restore balance to our group?"

"You, me, Godric and Helga?"

"That's my suggestion, yes."

In a prolonged moment, Rowena considered his words.

"Does Godric know you plan on bringing Helga?"

"Arh!" A single dark hair sprang out of order as he waved away her question irritatedly, "You know Gryffindor. He will talk of honour and greatness without ever achieving it if no one holds him to it. He sees the future more clearly than the present. In fact, he should have been a Seer."

This seemed to amuse him for a moment, for a brief smirk grazed his lips. Rowena thought he was being rather too harsh, her own opinion of Godric balancing delicately between genius and lunatic, but then again, so it did with all her friends.

Even Salazar qualified.

"I- We need you, your keen eye and ready mind, and I hear that your little friend is down to earth. That is good, she might bring you down from your seven heavens."

He'd taken her hand and she now reclaimed it in a clear statement.

"You assume too much, Salazar."

"On the contrary, my dear-"

"Do not-"

"I will."

His gaze ran over her face, scrutinising her greedily, feeding off her emotions. She felt chained to her own chair, and to prove to herself that she was still free as the bird whose name she carried around, she rose from her seat. Drawing on her full height, many would find her intimidating, she knew. It was a fact she had minded before, but never these days, and this particular evening, she could only regret that Salazar was not most. Instead, he seemed to find her apparent demonstration of power thrilling, as if she was entering a fight in which he'd stated the rules.

"You need me too," he whispered, and it ran cold shudders across her skin, but she realised he was right. Godric would never agree to such a scheme without Salazar, and Rowena herself did not know how to mend all bridges with Godric and Helga. Salazar knew, she read it in the excited contours of his face; not only did the group need him, she needed him.

What he didn't know, or pretended not to know, was that she and Godric had mentioned the wizarding school between them before. He would have forgotten, as Godric did so often, but she did not, and he was the one taking action.

Of course, the first he would spar with was Slytherin.

"I do," she nodded in agreement, for there was no reason denying it, and Rowena never assumed an unfit role of victim. She knew, and he knew that. Too intelligent to not understand the exact implications of the assent, Rowena chose a different line of conversation.

"How did you know?"

The man before her, now facing her fully, simply smiled.

"I know you better than you think."


End file.
